A Young Woman Fights To Educate Herself And The Children Of Hawkes Bay

Maripur is an area located on Hawkes Bay Beach on the coastal side of Karachi, where the majority of fishermen and daily wage labourers live, and they do not have enough resources to educate their children except to feed themselves. Getting an education was a dream for the children of the Maripur area, especially for the girls.

20-year-old Sahiba Naz took the responsibility of fulfilling the dream of the children for an education. Sahiba Naz is a student of BS Education in Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University Lyari, Karachi. She has converted a room in her house into a school which provides free education to impoverished fishermen’s children every day.

Speaking to the The Friday Times–Naya Daur, Sahiba Naz said that she is the only girl in the area who has continued her education and teaches children free of charge. She started this school in 2016 during the days when she did her matriculation.

Sahiba had intended to study further, but due to financial problems at home and the trend of not educating girls further in the area, she could not further continue her education. Even Sahiba's family forbade her to pursue further education.

When she had no option to pursue further study, she started teaching the children of her community for free at her home. In this way, she was able to teach the children for three years, but realised that because of her lack of proficiency in the English language, she would not be able to teach the children effectively, if it were to be based on an English syllabus. Her own education up to matriculation was in a government school, where there was no possibility to learn the vital language.

“At that stage, I thought that either I have to stop teaching these children or I have to study further, because I wanted to teach the children English. My family agreed to let me study further even after three years. And then three years later, I have continued my education by enrolling in college again, and continued to teach children more”, she says.

Sahiba now teaches more than 70 children daily in a school built in her living room. The small school is named “The Education House" – a name that refers to how it is literally based in the teacher’s own home.

Along with teaching the children, she also teaches the women of her community to acquire skills through the internet to make them independent. And two days a week, the children also learn computer skills – using a laptop and learning typing among other things.

Sahiba had collected some of her money to buy jewelry, but to teach children and women about computers and the internet, she sold her jewelry and took some credit to buy a laptop.

Sahiba also teaches girls of her community who cannot join her in her home school.

“I believe that if we continuously strive for our goal, one day we will definitely get our destination. And we should not be afraid of the difficult times, but we should fight them instead.”